Michelle Gale on Welcoming Mistakes in Conscious Parenting

Think about the moment a kid dumps cereal across the kitchen floor. How many of us have reacted the way I have, more times than I'd like to count? The sharp intake of breath, the 'Ah! Careful!' slipping out before I can stop it. What the moment actually calls for is something quieter: 'Sometimes it falls. Let me help you pick it up, and let me show you how.'

The help looks different depending on the age. With the very young ones, you get down and do a lot of it with them. As they grow, you hand them the broom, or the cloth, or whatever they need, and you step back. Either way, the posture is the same. You have to be ready to greet the mess instead of bracing against it.

That readiness matters because mistakes are the whole point of childhood. They are what kids are here to make. It will happen at three and it will happen later, and the stakes climb as the years do. The cereal on the floor at three becomes, at seventeen, the car accident. Same principle, much higher cost, which is exactly why you want them practicing how to recover from small things long before the big ones arrive.

Erik closed the conversation by thanking Michelle for sharing her thinking and for being part of A Psychology of the Future: The Online Summit, noting that members of her community would be joining the program to learn alongside everyone else. He thanked her again for teaching about conscious parenting and said they'd stay in touch. Michelle said the pleasure was hers, and that was where they left it.